FreeNAS 11 BHYVE Graphical drivers for Windows 10

[RAurelian]

Hi all,

Again, sorry if this question has been posted before - could not find it.

I`m using FreeNAS-11.0-U4 (54848d13b) [updated from 9.3] and have created a Windows 10 VM, which all works OK and I can connect to it via TightVNC and Microsoft`s RDP. The problem is this: I had a similar VM using phpVirtualBox jail on FreeNAS 9.3 which I used to run Blue Iris on it and record from my security cameras. Now I`ve re-created the same Windows 10 VM (fresh install) and installed Blue Iris on it, but when I try to start Blue Iris, Windows Will BSOD and the VM crashes ("kernel: pid 11704 (bhyve), uid 0: exited on signal 6 (core dumped)").

Windows is fully updated and I installed all the VirtIO drivers in the 0.1.141 package I could find. The same BSOD and VM crash occurs when I try to run GPU-Z, which leads me to believe the crash is due to the video drivers. Blue Iris had no issues running for ~ 2 years continually in a similar Windows 10 VM using phpVirtualBox jail on FreeNAS 9.3 and it also worked until a week ago when I upgraded FreeNAS.

Is there any specific driver package I can install to stop the VM from crashing due to virtual GPU? Or is there any settings I can tweak for BHYVE to better emulate the GPU?

Thank you!


EDIT: in case the HW matters for this post, here it is:
MB: MBD-X10SLH-F-O
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1270 v3 3.50 GHz
RAM: 32 GB ECC
FreeNAS-11.0-U4 (54848d13b)

 

[dlavigne]

There's a ton of bhyve improvements coming in BETA1 (slated for the 23rd). If an update to that does not fix the issue, please create a bug report at bugs.freenas.org and post the issue number here.

 

[RAurelian]

Hmm, that`s a long way out, especially since it`s a beta. If that does not fix it then who knows when a fix will be available..

I`ll submit a ticket as soon as I have the time, maybe there`s a higher chance to have it fixed sooner than later.

 

[Zwck]

Hmm, that`s a long way out, especially since it`s a beta. If that does not fix it then who knows when a fix will be available..

I`ll submit a ticket as soon as I have the time, maybe there`s a higher chance to have it fixed sooner than later.

I cannot really help you with your problem but may i ask why you use a full fledged windows installation for some security cameras. Is there no way to set up a RTMP server, or similar to achieve this? This is a question out of curiosity :D

 

[RAurelian]

Hehe, thank you for not helping :)

The reason is this: at the time of my researching what I needed, that was the best solution I could find. What I needed and still need is this:
- something to record from a high no. of cameras (that were and will still be added on in time, so it needs to be extensible at no extra cost)
- the cameras are different make and models, some are fixed, some are outdoor and some indoor. The software needs to know them all, record from all of them and control all of their functions for the ones that have them (e.g. Pan Tilt Zoom)
- the software should have a functional interface (and Blue Iris has the best interface I`ve seen from any "free" software and even from many, higher [read "over"] priced alternatives)
- the software should allow me to save footage / pictures to different locations per camera, with different encoding methods and different retention policies.
- I should be able to easily export chunks of video as needed, when needed
- I should be able to share some streams with other people, depending on the access I want to give them. Blue Iris has a web server which is very configurable and I can create users which simply log in and see their streams.
- the system should not have any limitations on the hardware side. This excluded any "ready made" boxes. To this VM I can allocate as many CPU cores as it needs, as much RAM as it need, and, more importantly, as many disks / volumes as I need (the FreeNAS box has 24 disk bays).

Blue Iris on FreeNAS using phpVirtualBox does all of the above and it`s very very easy to set up and use. Of course I looked for cheaper and even open-source / free alternatives (which worked on Linux), but none of them did all of the above. I`ve even fiddled with ZoneMinder a lot before I settled on Blue Iris (which requires Windows). Yes, there were some costs (60 EUR for BlueIris and 220 EUR for the retail version of Windows 8, now upgraded to 10) but the functionality of Blue Iris is amazing and I think 300 EUR for something that has worked almost non-stop for the last 4 years (fully non-stop in the last 2 years, since I stopped updating FreeNAS precisely because to update it meant I needed to let phpVirtualBox go) is well worth it.

If you have / know of an alternative to Blue Iris that can do all of the above and works on FreeBSD / Linux, I`ll gladly look into it.

 

[dlavigne]

Hmm, that`s a long way out, especially since it`s a beta. If that does not fix it then who knows when a fix will be available..

I`ll submit a ticket as soon as I have the time, maybe there`s a higher chance to have it fixed sooner than later.

Not really, it's part of the RC process for 11.1-RELEASE (due out mid Novemberish). You can check today if it's already fixed by running a nightly, or you can wait 2 weeks and update to BETA.

 

[Greg_E]

Guess I'll be waiting for the Beta before I try getting Server 2008R2 to work. Thanks Dru.

 

[yds]

Hehe, thank you for not helping :)
If you have / know of an alternative to Blue Iris that can do all of the above and works on FreeBSD / Linux, I`ll gladly look into it.

I'm a BlueIris user too. I have also been looking for a Linux alternative (would love to ditch my Windoze box!). Recently, I came across Shinobi. Haven't had time to look into it in any depth (and have not even downloaded and tried it yet), but you might want to look into it.

 

[danb35]

Recently, I came across Shinobi.

Looks interesting--and from what I can see of their docs, it ought to work just fine in FreeBSD as well. Wonder if they've tried that...

 

[Redcoat]

I'm a BlueIris user too. I have also been looking for a Linux alternative (would love to ditch my Windoze box!). Recently, I came across Shinobi. Haven't had time to look into it in any depth (and have not even downloaded and tried it yet), but you might want to look into it.

I am a frustrated attempted user of Zoneminder, too. I have a fine-working 9-camera Blue Iris installation that I would like to have migrated to ZM but so far I have got only one of the four models of camera that I have to be stable on it. Being only at that point I have not yet invested time in getting the storage or camera controls in place. I'm a complete Linux/Ubuntu and VM novice so I knew there was going to be some learning, probably hard, but this process has had a degree of opacity that has left me struggling to unravel it.

I guess I'll take a look at Shinobi ...

 

[danb35]

Edit: rather than further derail this thread, I've posted here.

 

[Redcoat]

That's as far as I've gotten so far--I can log in and get the Shinobi web GUI. I haven't tried anything further yet.

Thanks for the starter kit.

 

[RAurelian]

I'm a BlueIris user too. I have also been looking for a Linux alternative (would love to ditch my Windoze box!). Recently, I came across Shinobi. Haven't had time to look into it in any depth (and have not even downloaded and tried it yet), but you might want to look into it.

Hey yds, thank you for the tip! Zoneminder never truly worked for me, even though I got to see video through it - BlueIris was the only one that`s given me all the functionality I need. In the meantime I`ve given up trying to get it working again on FreeNAS and have it instead on another machine (as a VM on an ESXi server) with storage shared from FreeNAS. This is creating a lot of traffic on my network, a thing I wanted to avoid, but it will do for now.

But I will definitely have a look at Shinobi and see if I can get it to run reliable on my FreeNAS box - I`d like to have the video recording happening right there and stored directly on the discs, not though the network. I`ve also looked at Shinobi Pro and the price is whoohooo :) - I guess Shinobi must have a lot of features. I`ll try the CE edition and if it has full recording, as well as PTZ support for my cameras, and is able to create users linked to some cameras, then I might just use it.

 

[danb35]

I`ve also looked at Shinobi Pro and the price is whoohooo

Are you looking for personal, or commercial use? Pro is free for non-commercial use. But yes, check it out--my instructions linked above seem to work in a FreeNAS jail.

 

[Chris Moore]

phpVirtualBox jail on FreeNAS 9.3

I don't understand why they dropped support for Virtual Box. I stopped updating for a good six months because I didn't want to lose my VMs.
Honestly, I would probably still be on FreeNAS 9.3 if FreeNAS 11 didn't say it had VMs, but I have not been able to get any to run, none, not even Linux. What did you have to do to get a Windows VM running?

 

[danb35]

I don't understand why they dropped support for Virtual Box.

Because VirtualBox on FreeBSD has always been an ugly hack, and there were (as I recall) serious security issues with some of the kernel modules required to get it to work.

 

[chris crude]

What did you have to do to get a Windows VM running?

used the windows media creation tool for a win10 .iso, then used a windows 7 key to activate it. After install was complete, I changed the NIC driver in windows VM to virtIO, then changed FreeNAS VM NIC to virtIO.

 

[RAurelian]

Are you looking for personal, or commercial use? Pro is free for non-commercial use. But yes, check it out--my instructions linked above seem to work in a FreeNAS jail.

I`m looking to use it in several places (home, a kindengarten and a business). However, I`d like to go with the CE edition which I understand that can be used in any setting without issues. However, I was looking at the PRO edition`s costs so as to compare it with Blue Iris` cost as a means of comparing them. Since Shinobi is much more expensive, I hope it`s also much better:)

I`ll definitely have a look at your guide when I`ll get around to it, but I`m not sure if I`d like to go with a FreeBSD jail or if I should go with an Ubuntu VM on bHyve. It happened in the past that some jails failed to work after a major FreeNAS update. This is the beauty with VMs (when they work) - in case something happens, I just move the VM over to another server.

 

[danb35]

It happened in the past that some jails failed to work after a major FreeNAS update.

With the exception of VirtualBox jails, going back at least to 9.3, old jails have continued to work after a major upgrade, but upgrades have been limited. This is supposed to be resolved with the new iocage-based jail system slated for 11.1, which is due out Real Soon Now.

An advantage with using a VM is that you'd be able to run the software in a "supported" environment--after all, there's no official documentation for running Shinobi under FreeBSD. OTOH, with a jail you have a lot less overhead, and also the advantage of mounting the storage to the jail without involving the network stack.

 

[RAurelian]

An advantage with using a VM is that you'd be able to run the software in a "supported" environment--after all, there's no official documentation for running Shinobi under FreeBSD. OTOH, with a jail you have a lot less overhead, and also the advantage of mounting the storage to the jail without involving the network stack

Yes, I`d prefer running Shinobi or any other software in a supported environment and I`m really looking forward to see what will be available in 11.1.
I`ve already used Jails with some softwares, like for example urBackup or some databases and web servers, but there are others that I simply could not get to run properly in a FreeBSD jail. The low resource overhead is nice, but then again, in the event of an issue it`s harder to migrate the whole jail so as to have everything up an running quickly somewhere else.

In my experience and opinion, I`ll almost always trade the jail system with true VM. Each VM that I have can be easily migrated in max 1h (limited just by their size and transfer speed) just as it is somewhere else in case the server on which they run fails.